Inside the Flyers: Time for Flyers fans to appreciate Carter

DALLAS - Jeff Carter, the Flyers' unassuming forward who is (again) one of the NHL's top scorers, is plagued by Mike Schmidt syndrome.

Carter plays his sport so effortlessly that fans sometimes think he is lazy, that he doesn't care, that he coasts through games.

Like Schmidt, who was known as "Mr. Cool" and received the same criticism during his Hall of Fame career with the Phillies, that is not the case.

Schmidt played with grace. So does the smooth-skating Carter.

Carter gets a rap for not scoring important goals - just like Schmidt used to be criticized for not hitting in the clutch.

Schmidt swatted three-run homers when the game was already decided, not when it mattered the most. That was one theory many Phillies fans loved to embrace until the fabled third baseman's career was near an end.

Carter scores a lot of his goals when the Flyers are ahead by a huge margin. That's the theory of many Flyers fans, who like to point out that Carter has struggled in the postseason.

Yes, Carter has been relatively unproductive in the playoffs (12 goals and seven assists in 41 games), and he has failed to score at some opportune times (see the squandered late chance that would have won Game 6 in last year's Finals).

It should be pointed out, however, that Carter gallantly returned to last year's playoffs after breaking both feet at different times.

And to say he isn't a clutch scorer isn't fair. Or accurate.

Carter leads the Flyers with seven game-winning goals this season, which was tied for sixth in the NHL heading into the weekend. He had quietly climbed into sixth in the NHL with 32 goals, and was among the league leaders in shots (281, fifth), faceoff percentage (20th, 54.7 percent), and plus-minus (15th, plus-23).

In short, the London, Ontario, native is one of the league's most productive players, and he has performed admirably this season despite spending much of the year at wing instead of his natural center position.

He has scored 32 or more goals in the last three seasons, and, heading into Friday, only two other NHL players could make that claim: Calgary's Jarome Iginla and some guy name Sidney Crosby of Pittsburgh.

Yet, Carter is mostly unappreciated, based on the negative tweets, e-mails, and complaints to radio call-in shows in recent years.

Like Schmidt.

Schmidt was booed by Phillies fans until the latter stages of his career. Only then did folks start to realize they were watching the Greatest Third Baseman in Major-League History.

No one is suggesting that Carter will go down as the best center to ever lace on skates. Far from it. But, considering he signed an 11-year contract extension in November, he is likely to finish as the all-time leading goal-scorer in franchise history. (Bill Barber has the record with 420 goals.)

Isn't it time for fans to start appreciating just how consistent Carter has been - and how the Flyers would struggle for goals without him?

At 26, Carter already had 177 career goals entering Saturday night's game in Dallas. He has more goals at 26 than a host of former stars at the same age, including John LeClair (125 goals in a season that ended when he was 26), Rick MacLeish (145), Gary Roberts (154), Jean Beliveau (163), and Claude Lemieux (168). He is only slightly behind Guy Lafleur (193) and Sergei Fedorov (193)

It's time for fans to celebrate Carter's contributions. He's not perfect. He sometimes doesn't pass enough, but, hey, when you have one of the game's best wrist shots, when you are a threat to score 40 goals every year, that complaint does not carry much weight.